A clickable walkthrough of one late-night DWI email: an instant reply in English or Spanish, an urgent text to your cell with the 10-day MVD deadline flagged, a booking link, a follow-up email you approve and a social post. Each step uses real tools, and the costs below come from Albuquerque wage data and published prices.
Start the walkthrough ↓ Run your own numbers
Demo only. “Daniel Archuleta” is a made-up client, and every detail about him is fictitious. Nothing here is connected to your systems.
of law firms in Clio’s 2024 secret-shopper study never replied to a prospective client’s email.[2]
of people looking for a lawyer expect a reply within 24 hours.[3]
potential clients, on average, at firms that use online intake tools, according to Clio.[2]
Your site already promises “When you call, you get me, not a middleman” and that your phone line is answered 24/7. Email is different: office hours are Monday–Friday, 9–4:30, and someone arrested on a Friday night has only 10 days to request an MVD hearing. The point here is that an email sent at midnight gets the same urgency as a call.
Click a step or use Next. Each step shows what happens today, what the automated version does, and which tools do it.
Today: the email waits in info@ until someone opens it, possibly Monday morning, then they read it, work out what the person needs and pass it to you.
Automated: within a minute, Daniel gets a reply in the language he wrote in: you’ve received his message, you’re available 24/7 at (505) 247-1973, and here’s a Calendly link for a free, confidential consultation. Your wording, approved once up front.
Plain words: Zapier is a “when this happens, do that” connector between apps you already use.
Today: someone reads the email, decides it’s urgent, tries to reach you, and copies the details into your files.
Automated: the AI step reads each email and flags arrests, DWI notices, court dates and deadlines as urgent. Urgent ones text your own cell right away with a short, neutral summary, so you can call back while it still matters. Everything else waits for the morning. A contact record is created either way.
SMS by Zapier only texts your own verified number (US, up to 15 an hour; T-Mobile not supported). The alert stays short and avoids case details in the text itself.[15]
Today: remembering who still needs a callback and which deadlines are running, then checking whether they booked.
Automated: a callback task and a deadline task are created from the email. When Daniel books through Calendly, the callback clears itself and his stage updates. Calendly connects to Zapier with “new event scheduled” triggers.[9]
Hi Daniel,
Thank you for talking with me today. Here’s a quick recap of what we discussed and what happens next:
1) We’ll get your MVD hearing request in, in writing, before the 10-day deadline from your Notice of Revocation, 2) you’ll send me a photo of the notice and your citation, 3) I’ll request the reports and video, and 4) we’ll talk again before your first court date.
When you call, you get me, not a middleman. Call me any time at (505) 247-1973.
Art Nieto, Nieto Law Office
Today: write the recap from scratch after each consult, or skip it on busy trial weeks.
Automated: after the consultation ends, a draft lands in your email drafts folder, written from your notes in your voice, in English or Spanish. Nothing sends until you read it and click send.
Today: think of a topic, write it, make a graphic and post it by hand on each channel.
Automated: once a week, common questions from inquiries (never names or details) become a draft post in your voice, using material you already publish, like your DWI deadline explanation. You approve it, and it’s scheduled to Facebook and LinkedIn.[16]
Client details never go into a post. The AI only sees anonymized topics.
From a look at nietolawfirm.com on Nov 2, 2026. We’d confirm all of this with you on a call.
✅ Works with your existing info@ inbox, phone line and website; no rebuild needed.
Cost = minutes per step × hourly cost × how often it happens. The defaults are 10 inquiries a week (an assumption; change it in the calculator) and $28.96/hr, the May 2025 mean wage for paralegals and legal assistants in the Albuquerque metro area.[1] We add an overhead estimate on top of the wage (default 20% for benefits, payroll taxes, office and software; change it in the calculator), so the default hourly cost is $28.96 + 20% ($5.79) = $34.75/hr. Minutes per step are estimates.
| Step | How often | Today (min) | Automated (min) | Today $/wk | Automated $/wk | Saved $/yr | Tools |
|---|
| New tool subscription | Plan | $/month | $/year | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zapier | Professional, 750 tasks/mo, billed annually | $19.99 | $239.88 | [4] |
| Calendly | Standard, 1 seat, billed yearly (needed for the Zapier connection) | $10.00 | $120.00 | [12] |
| HubSpot CRM | Free (2 users, 1,000 contacts) | $0.00 | $0.00 | [6] |
| Meta Business Suite | Free | $0.00 | $0.00 | [7] |
| Buffer | Free (LinkedIn; up to 3 channels, 10 queued posts each) | $0.00 | $0.00 | [8] |
| SMS by Zapier | Built into Zapier, texts to your own number only | $0.00 | $0.00 | [15] |
| Total new subscriptions | $29.99 | $359.88 |
One-time setup by our team is separate and quoted as a fixed price after the discovery call. Task volume check: about 7 Zapier tasks per inquiry (including the dashboard log) × 43 inquiries/mo ≈ 300 tasks, plus about 10 for the Monday summary, well inside the 750-task plan (estimate).
If Art handles intake himself, choose the lawyer rate. The hours saved are hours he can spend in court or on paid work.
Every time the workflow runs, it adds a row to a log (a Google Sheet). This dashboard reads that log, so it is always up to date without anyone filling it in. The numbers below are example data built from the calculator inputs above (inquiries, posts, hourly cost, overhead and tools), with normal week-to-week ups and downs. Pick how long since go-live to see the totals at that point.
Tap a bar to see that week, including ROI as of that week.
Net gain = dollars saved − tool cost − one-time setup, counted from go-live. Setup here is an example figure; your fixed price is quoted after the call.
We’d start with one or two of these steps, likely the instant after-hours reply plus the urgent text to your cell, and measure the difference.
Reply to set up a time, or just give me a call Email john@sunnyskiesconsulting.com Call (505) 720-1380
Built by John Mierzwa, founder of Ingenuity Software Labs. Its team built client sites, custom web apps and CRMs for local companies, including the Duran & McDonald law-firm site (newmexicoaccidentfirm.com). Today John designs and runs a team of about 14 AI agents that handle work like this every day.
Offered through Sunny Skies Consulting, a woman-owned Albuquerque company owned by Lisa Adkins (sunnyskiesconsulting.com).
Estimates: minutes per step (today and automated), inquiries per week, social posts per week and the Zapier task count are estimates or assumptions for illustration. We can start right away; if desired, a 1–2 week baseline replaces them with your real numbers so you can compare before/after costs and ROI. Dollar figures use the wage plus the overhead percentage set in the calculator (default 20%, an estimate). Overhead varies by firm, so we confirm it with you.